A Spiritual View of Mental Illness

The difficulties that occur for the many who carry within
themselves severe mental or emotional disturbance are legion,
occurring on many levels of experience. This is true for those who
are severely depressed, withdrawn, alienated, or involved with an
inner reality that is visible to themselves alone that separates
them from the world around them. For those challenged in this way,
the extreme separation from life causes much pain and suffering,
as it does also for family and friends who must find ways of
building a bridge to the one who has become separated – who often
lives alone, despite the fact that there may be people around.

Up until now, we have looked at mental and emotional disorders as
an extreme handicap for those who live through them, a financial
burden for a society that maintains those who cannot care for
themselves, and a source of concern for families who try to remain
in loving relationship even while experiencing hardship. Indeed,
we know a great deal today about the impact of mental illness on
the self and on others. But what has not been knowable till now is
the relationship of the group of conditions we are calling ‘mental
illness’ to the realm of the soul. As paradoxical as it may seem
to the human heart and mind, this relationship involves a
choice that the soul has made to manifest in this way – a
choice to create a deep-seated emotional or mental condition
for which a great cost is paid in life. This choice, though
invisible, is very real. Perceiving it can help us penetrate the
mysterious world of the mentally ill. It can also help us look for
the hidden value and purpose of conditions that at face value seem
anything but positive in their nature or in their effect.

The choice for illness of any kind that shapes the course of a
life or a significant portion of it is always the choice of the
individual soul, made prior to incarnating into physical life. The
soul looks at the various opportunities for learning that could be
afforded by different circumstances, and chooses what will be most
productive in terms of growth in a particular area. In relation to
severe emotional or mental difficulties, especially those in which
separation from reality is involved, the soul makes a choice to
learn from the very experience of separation, alienation, and
distortion that is the handicap itself – to learn in the context
of being deeply wounded, deeply immersed in one’s own inner
reality, and yet also, simultaneously, separated from oneself. For
the separation from external reality, for most, is accompanied by
an equally potent separation from one’s true self. As a result, a
person can experience a lack of a central core or clear sense of
‘I’ that invisibly limits all of life-experience. This situation,
including patterns of withdrawal and difficulties on both mental
and emotional levels, displays differently for different
individuals. Yet within the variation there is a common thread. It
is this:

At the core of the choice to embody in a way that causes
severe and painful separation from reality and from the self, is
the motivation on a soul-level to find that very center of
self, and to re-establish a connection with the rest of the
world that has previously been injured or broken.

To put it differently, what we witness as the fundamental
condition of deficiency in those who suffer from mental
disturbance, is actually promoting healing as the soul
seeks to find what is missing and to unite what has come apart.
In the course of time, the drive to locate what has become lost
or distorted, both on the outside and on the inside, becomes the
path of healing.

Today, most of us do not think of symptoms or severely limiting
conditions as a path of healing because there is so much suffering
and limitation involved. And yet with respect to the mentally ill,
the disrupted sense of self and the search for a core self is, in
fact, such a path. It creates a great need to find one’s way back
to a more solid footing in relation to the external world and also
in relationship to the self. With this in mind, we can begin to
think of mental and emotional disorders as both a problem, and an
answer to a problem. The problem is visible; that it is an answer,
most often is not.

At this point we might ask what difference it would make to
hold such a spiritual perspective. How would it help us? The
answer is twofold. On the level of healing, greater awareness of
the choice made for severe mental and emotional conditions
can lead more directly to other paths of learning for which this
choice has been the main focal point.

Secondly, on the level of everyday reality, experiences of
rejection and humiliation are still common for many whom society
perceives as different.. The aspect of differentness which
manifests in so many ways, often creates a reactiveness on the
part of others that does not allow for personal dignity. It does
not acknowledge the soul within. Were the emotional or mental
disturbance itself perceived to be a positive choice of the soul
that has its own purposes in mind, much more in the way of dignity
and strength could be seen as we seek to relate to the soul
within; greater hope would be possible; and the separation from
the rest of life could be lessened.

As we enter a new era of oneness with each other, based on the
greater recognition of the Divine nature of each living being, a
spiritual perspective such as this is a natural outcome. Such a
perspective would help remove the stigma of separation that so
persistently follows those who manifest
mental or emotional
disturbance. In its light, we would come to see each one who has
chosen this path as the individual soul that they are. We would
see more of their strength, we would see their beauty, and we
would feel their kinship to us within the planetary family of
which we are each a part.